EMPOWERING WOMEN!!!!!!!!

Is the empowerment of women ALWAYS....ok...almost always...:) for the betterment of society?

....You can guess

My answer Is....YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you think?

Why?

For the purpose of this discussion: We must first define the empowerment of women. Please see this video. Women have only recently with the invention of modern medicine been able to control their reproductive health and choice. They have become much more equal in the workforce. They have been allowed to raise their children with infrastructure in place to aid them financially and emotionally. They have been given many rights that in previous generations were defaulted to the man, such as the right to vote, the right to join the armed forced and even the right to say no to sex and be heard. These rights have not come over night. But we now have them and many take them for granted. Myself included maybe. But the empowerment of women is more than just giving them rights. It's being able and willing as a society to recognize their humanity and honor it as just as important as a man's humanity. This means that special considerations must be made due to the nature of women as the child bearers and mothers. It doesn't mean special treatment or putting women above men, it means elevating them to a place where they can make the most of their lives and the lives of their children, and the society they live in. It means allowing them to use their unique skills and influence to counteract the sometimes male-dominated attitudes that prevail in public life, and it means that women MUST be respected for the natural born abilities they can bring to others, but even more so their ability to be authentically themselves without societal pressure to conform to old ways of thinking and living. It is the only way our species will survive and has survived. Women have sought empowerment and have won in many ways, but in my opinion and the point of this discussion is to say that there is NEVER a circumstance where the empowerment of women would be detrimental to society, therefore it is ALWAYS for the betterment of society.

Replies to This Discussion

I'm not Rick, but until he responds, you'll have to settle for my cent and a half's worth --

While I'd be inclined to agree that perpetual hornyness and the urge to have sex with multiple females is normal and natural for many of us, and may be part of that natural instinct you mention, I don't believe rape falls into that category. With many men, sex isn't just about the orgasm, it's about the road to getting there. There's also an ego boost involved that a particular woman wishes to have sex with you.

In rape, however, there is none of that, except for the pure, raw orgasm - no fun in getting there, no ego boost, just the feeling that you are in complete control of the woman, and that's what I would assume that rape is all about - not fun, not the creative impulse, not even the orgasm, just the control of a woman who would likely otherwise have nothing to do with you.

I can't understand why a man would ever want to rape a woman, even if he knew for certain he could get away with it, but then I've never been much into controlling people.

Everything we humans do is either 'mechanical' or 'emotional'. When we eat, sleep, read, get up to go to work, or make logical choices; that's 'mechanical'. When we cry or laugh, want intimacy, feel embarrassed or proud; that's 'emotional'.Other's might think of different examples for both, or even disagree, but I think I've expressed the simple idea well enough. You can have sex without being in love, and you can be in love without having sex.

To me, 'being in love' is emotional, it involves a huge combination of emotional things; a need for companionship and acceptance, a want for closeness, an appreciation for congruent personalities, a need to feel needed, a desire to feel worthy of the other's love; all sorts of mental things come into play, some quite sensible and natural, some more imaginary and constructed. On the other hand, what I think of as mechanical, for the purpose of this discussion, is the ability of a man to become what we all commonly call 'horny'. Women can be horny too, and that's just as mechanical, but I think it's for a different set of reasons, mostly pair-bonding or maternal in nature. But let's get back to the guys.

Most of us have known a young man at some point who we've heard described as, "He'll have sex with any woman he sees!" No, it's not usually meant to be literal, but a distinctive behavioral pattern is obvious. I've known guys like that all my life; hell, I think I was one of those guys during my twenties. For years, every pretty woman I saw was immediately put into a sexual fantasy in my mind, until I saw the next one, and then the next.

Some guys instantly know there's a woman in their proximity. Once they see her, once they view her form, it becomes mechanical; their hearts start to race, their hormones start to sizzle, their testosterone increases, and they can even get an erection imagining having sex with them. Even if they're usually quite sensible and even shy, the mechanical trait has taken over, and they will sometimes say anything and do anything it takes to convince the woman to have sex with them. I'm not saying they have no control, or in any way are they free from culpability or shouldn't be held accountable for their actions, I'm just telling you what I think is 'mechanically' going on inside them. The next-strongest instinct after 'survival', is the instinct to mate. As far as our own self-serving DNA is concerned, that's why we are alive. Yes, I think every male human is born with this instinct. In some men the nature is less or more powerful than in others. Some men can control it better than others, some can mature past it rather quickly and easily without succumbing to it, some can't.

A guy can be working intensely on a fairly tedious project, concentrating on safely running a complicated machine, or engrossed in some mentally-taxing activity; but let a woman walk into view, and even if he's never seen or met her before, his mind can be instantly distracted; it can almost seize-up completely. He can suddenly forget all about whatever had just been totally consuming his mind. The sight of her form, the sound of her voice, the fluidity of her movement, the scent of her pheromones can temporarily incapacitate him. (sorry, I lost track of what I was saying there for a moment.)Does this sound as if there is an emotion involved? Does he suddenly need to feel close to this woman he's never met before to express an emotional attachment. Does he instantly appreciate her love of classical music, how she looks when she's sleeping, or that cute little noise she makes when she sneezes? No. The seizing of his mind at the sight of her body is purely instinctual, mechanical.

This is a DNA directive, a reptilian brain instinct that tells this young man's ordinarily sensible mind and body, that before the night is over, he needs to mate with her. Whatever the reason, his instincts tell him that he has a physical need to mate. And of course men are notorious for feeling unusually upset, despondent, dejected if they can't fulfill their DNA directive and mate as soon as possible. Sorry, that's not love. They may fall in love later on, but at first, the emotional manifestation of love has nothing to do with it. This directive is so strong and 'mechanical', that as a couple, you don't even need to have ever experienced sex before. You don't need to have ever heard about it before. If the instinct is strong enough, the act of sex will happen quite well all on it's own. All the working parts will come together nicely, almost effortlessly, because our DNA designed us that way. I also think this instinct that is so strong in young men and women, lessens with age. It did in my case anyway.

Mix this constant instinctual male drive with a twisted set of values taught to them as a child, or an emotionally distorted need to feel powerful, or throw in some self-hatred thing that compels them to force themselves on women, and you'll have many different variants on the theme.

As much as we'd rather see ourselves as different and separate or 'above' the other mammals on the planet, we're merely the species that natural selection chose to stand at the top of the food chain. We may have developed complicated brain function through the natural course of our evolution and our DNA's need to survive, but we're still just animals.

I don't know if I came anywhere close to answering your question Belle, I hope so.

RE: "I should have thought that one through before I asked." - you couldn't have, you asked for a male perspective, of which you are not one (unless you've got yet another alias in there somewhere --)

If I can put my opinion in a nutshell, rape is committed by a small ego in a big body.

But before I close, let me say I've been watching the evolution of your thought and reasoning processes, from when you first came here, til now, and there have been dramatic improvements - it's probably that we so often ask people to defend their positions, that you've learned to think more deeply and phrase the things you say more succinctly. Glad you decided to stay, whatever you're calling yourself this week.

No Belle, it was a very reasonable question. The situation doesn't make logical sense unless you know what Arch said (which I agree with). I've known one person who admitted to being troubled with rape fantasies, and he had a very over-controlling father. The guy who nail-bombed the Admiral Nelson (gay pub in Soho) was similar to that and he was big on rape fantasies apparently. I believe it's a lot more common than people think.

My friend was/is educated (he went nuts eventually and I never saw him again) and to the best of my knowledge, was in no danger of carrying out the fantasies. He has great respect for women. Like I said, the fantasies troubled him greatly.

As for the rest of your questions, I'm somewhat stumped. We have a predisposition for some men to have these fantasies because they feel powerless and humiliated from an early age. So... they need to be steered away from carrying them out - they need to be educated. On top of that, we have a problem with powerless humiliated men taking it out on their sons and making them the same way. Perhaps mothers can be guilty of this too.

If you fancy doing some murky googling (who wouldn't?) there's a whole subculture out there to learn about. You would somehow need to get it from the horse's mouth.